Fun weekend

September exited with some good fun this weekend. Friday night LL and I just hung out on the sofa and watched shows we had on the DVR from Thursday night. During the day I had watched some Ryder Cup golf and everyone to whom I speak firmly believes they'd watch more golf on TV if it were more like what we saw this weekend. The format, if you're not familiar, is the US vs. Europe in different formats: alternate shot, best ball and head up. Going into the head up matches on Sunday, the US was up 10-6 and then choked it away to lose 14 1/2-13 1/2. That means in the one on one matches, we lost 8 1/2 to 3 1/2. Brutal.

But it was FUN to watch! Seriously!! People were cheering wildly for the US (and even while one guy was teeing off) instead of the traditional, very quiet, laid back, be polite type of golf. If a guy on the European team hit it in the water, wild cheers! The Englishman chokes on a putt: wild cheers!  The Spaniard hits it into the trees: wild cheers! Just a hoot to watch.Even LL wanted to know what was going on and asked about updates.

On Saturday we headed to Morris, Illinois for their Corn Festival. Oddly, it's actually not easy to find corn there! There was only one stand with corn and then one with kettle corn, which only kind of counts. Lots of beer though and pork! I had two pulled pork sandwiches and part of LL's pork chop on a stick. Delicious.

The folks with whom we tailgate and who sit next to us at the Bears games live in Morris, so we decided to stop in and see them as part of the trip. Doug Sr. has a great house!



Here's the entrance to his finished basement.

And here's the other wall. Very cool!! His house is huge and awesome and includes a ginourmous back deck with a swimming pool and everything. It's pretty great!!












LL had to work Sunday morning and then headed out to have lunch with her friend Nicole in Naperville. Meanwhile, I watched some football, some Ryder Cup, dug a trench in the back yard, got on the roof and cleaned out the gutters and hit the Oktoberfest at my church. Another busy weekend!!! Tomorrow night: Bears/Cowboys!!

Planning for winter already?

While at my Starbucks today, I saw that they had K-cups on sale for essentially 50% off. Since I have a Keurig machine, but don't often use it, I decided to buy some K-cups and prepare for winter. Now, when the weather turns nasty and I don't feel like going outside, I'll have a nice cup of Starbucks coffee for which I did not overpay. Good for me!

LL is having some nausea problems that are more commonly associated with the first trimester of pregnancy even though she's at about 15 weeks or so now. She's also developed some carpal tunnel like symptoms in her wrists that are also attributed to the pregnancy. It really kills me that I can't help her or that she can't take the medicine that exists to solve these issues. Ugh. It's the way guys are wired right? I'm here to solve shit: kill the bugs, fix the whatever machine and solve the little problems. Having to sit by and not do anything is tough.

ESDNM is off to Spain for several weeks, just as we got a new client. Nice work if you can get it!

How do you get Joe to not drink (so much) at a Bears game?

 It's Sunday night, about 9, and I'm beat. We've been home for more than three hours and have cleaned up (LL is a HUGE help cleaning up). We've both taken nice warm showers and are in our comfy clothes. What a fun weekend. It truly was exhausting though.

Everything started off on Thursday night with my client's 25th anniversary party at the office of Mark Anthony Brand's, the creator of Mike's Hard Lemonade.

Here's some sort of proof that I was actually there. It was a lot of fun as almost all the people with whom I worked to move Morningstar into their first real office space 20 years ago, was at the party! It was a huge reunion for me and LL was very impressed that I knew so many people....most of whom had very nice things to say about me! In addition to the architects who designed the space, was the flooring guy, the contractor, the real estate broker's assistant, the furniture gal and her assistant (who is now repping 5 lines of office furniture herself) and the engineer. Great fun!











And here are the men of the hour: my clients and the current owners of the firm.  Look at those cupcakes on the right! Yum!










Friday, though it rained on and off all day, I was invited to golf with a friend who is a member at nearby country club. Great fun despite the cool temps and a bit of rain.

Here's a picture from the seats we had on Saturday for the Cubs/Cardinals game. It was sunny, but cold so we were happy to have extra seats on either side of us (and a blanket and gloves!).










After a brief respite and a hot shower at home, I headed out to meet Ricardo, Markakis and Ricardo's buddy Mitch at a brewery for their Oktoberfest. Now, the bar sponsoring it, Revolution Brewing, is right next door to Ricardo's house, so I was going to drive over there and just park on the street. Then Markakis called me just before I left to ask for a ride. Unfortunately, he lives on the west side of Wrigley and I leave east of Wrigley, and after a game all the traffic is moving west. But I fought through traffic, picked him up and then headed south to Ricardo's. As I pulled up, there was Ricardo on the street. He was looking for a cab. But why if the festival is next door? Well, it wasn't next door; it was at their actual brewery which was back up north actually at the end of my street, but west. Ugh. So I played cab driver and drove us all up there.  It was fortunate that I DID drive because cabs were tough to find when we left and Markakis would have been stranded had he taken the bus to Ricardo's.



Here's what we were rewarded with when we arrived. Holy smokes is this place huge!










And the beer steins are huge! This is not an optical illusion. It was tough to hold these when they were filled. You can see my cheeks are still a bit red from being out at the Cubs game.

 Another picture where I'm trying to show the size of the beer glass. That's Markakis in the black jacket and Ricardo is in the background to the left with the ball hat on.

Everything ran on tickets, which were 5 for $20. A full stein was two tickets, but you could buy a half for one ticket. A big Bavarian pretzel was one ticket and a brat was one as well. Then a side of German potatoes was also one, which is $4. A little steep. Anyway, it was all delicious. At the end of the night, when Markakis was finally hungry, they actually GAVE us some potatoes and brats because they were out of pretzels and everyone was going home anyway. Nice!

 And then came Sunday morning. Good Lord did it come quickly. Here's a picture of the tailgating crew. The highlight was definitely my guests, George and his girlfriend Dena, though not because they are nice people, which they are. No, it was the massive amounts of food they brought!! A cheese and sausage plate, a bowl of pasta salad and big container of pulled pork. Yum!! Then Blind Mender brought his mom's sausage and cheese roll, which is delicious and Liz and her boyfriend Jim, brought cheddar-bacon biscuits. Again, yum! Then some other people, friends of friends, brought sausages. It was crazy how much food there was. That was all in addition to the food we brought.

With all the food, you'd think I could drink a bunch more, but because of my splurging at Oktoberfest, I was not up for drinking too much booze...unheard of during a Bears game. I did have a bloody Mary (actually bloody Maria as it was made with tequila not vodka) and a few spiked apple ciders (with Captain Morgan) to get me going. Eventually I did have a few beers, but only one during the actually game instead of the usual 3-4. Still, fun was had by all....but I'm happy to be going to bed!!

Busy now, busier next week!

Work and my life continues to be pretty busy.  Fortunately I've been able to at least get to the gym a few times in the last three days: once to run and once to lift. I say "fortunately" not only because of my time constraints but also because I have had some pain (or bad aches) in my left neck/shoulder area related to my herniated disc.

Another weekend is going to go by pretty quickly. How can I be talking about the weekend already you ask? Well, Thursday night is a client's 25th anniversary party at the headquarters of Mike's Hard Lemonade. Yeah, like I'd miss THAT! Friday is a noon tee off at a country club which I enjoy. No chance of missing that either. Saturday I have tickets to the Cubs/Cardinals game in my really good seats and then am going to an Oktoberfest celebration near Ricardo's house with Ricardo and Markakis....and possibly Smitty I think. Then Sunday morning at 8 a.m. is the Bears tailgate for the noon game against St. Louis. Wow....I'm already tired....and behind in my work!!

We just added another client too and on cue, ESDNM is going on a long vacation to Europe. Way to go slacker!!!

Mish Mosh

This morning I heard on the radio that as of Friday, Apple's market cap (it's number of shares times the price of the shares) is higher than the GDP of Denmark, Finland and Hungary......combined. Wow. Things like this always surprise me. Like California, if it were a country, would have something like the 10th highest GDP in the world. I don't remember exactly where it is, but it's up there. Crazy.

Remember this future headline?  I hope you went long the Dow!

Yesterday was my sister (and sometimes blog poster) Bee's birthday. Happy Birthday again Bee!! The family got together at my folks' place to celebrate the way we do: eating a bunch of food. In addition to Bee's birthday, we celebrated LL being 13 weeks along now and talked about how my 13 year old niece has a boyfriend. Good for her!

I thought about this weekend's games a bit more over the last few days, though I wouldn't say I OBSESSED, I did at least dwell. Even though I was 3-5, I was really only happy with two swings and that's disappointing. Anytime you're playing at Disney, you need to get up there and really have good swings. Granted the pitching and defense on the other side are better than normal, but I feel I could have done better. Anyway, our team gave up 22 and 26 runs. That's a lot of runs. In the second game, we actually did give away some runs on defense and could have won that game, but still it's a lot of runs. So why?  Our pitcher has been hurt the last month with some sort of elbow injury (possibly tendinitis) and sometimes even runs with his arm completely extended and straight. So though he continued to go out there and try, the results seem to indicate to me that he couldn't move the ball around at all. We didn't give up 20+ runs to teams a level ABOVE us during the year and then we had two straight games that way? Not to mention the poor showing at nationals two weeks ago. Our backup pitcher did come into pitch in the second game and didn't give up too many runs (the runs he did give up were more of the unearned variety), so I tend to think I'm on to something. That said, we were actually leading both games 1-0 after 2 or 3 innings which would mean our pitcher would have had to just lose it after a certain number of pitches, which is certainly possible with a muscle/tendon issue.

Another short weekend

Wednesday I headed down to Orlando with our softball team for a softball tournament with 160 + teams.  Thursday was our first game and was actually on the Disney complex.  Unfortunately we we were outplayed and lost 22-1. It was 1-0 inour favor after 2 innings and then 6-1 after 3.
Unfortunately the top of the fourth came and they scored 16 runs and the game was ended after 4. I only got to bat once and I was in the middle of the lineup! Awful.

Since we lost, we only had one game on Thursday, but were slatted to play 6 on Friday. That is we would have had we won the first one which we did not. It was at 9 a.m. after theteam was out for the Bears/Packers game on Thursday night. We went up 1-0 again, but were quickly down 6-1due to some poor fielding.  It looked like trouble for us again but then I came up to bat with a runner on second and two outs. Unfortunately I hit ground ball to second that looked like it was going to be an easy play. I ran it out though and the second baseman threw wide of first and took the first baseman off the bag. After a discussion by the umpires, they ruled me safe. The next batter tripled scoring two and we went on to tie at 6-6. Soon we were down  by double digits, and came back again. Eventually we lost 26-21. I ended up getting on 3 out of 4 times and was 3-5 for the short tournament and had a double with a couple of RBI. 

One of the great things about flying southwest is that they allow you to change flights without an extra charge. So as a precaution, I booked two flights coming home, one on Saturday night and one on Monday morning.  I was looking forward to NOT using the Saturday night ticket, but sadly it will be the Monday ticket that earns me a credit. The team we first lost to was from Alabama and they have won at least one more game. 

Anyway, I hope that things around the house and office will be a little less busy over the next few weeks. Here's hoping!

No time to write

Hello!! Boy, it's been tough to keep up with my blog lately.  It's not for a lack of things going on or topics; quite the opposite. Work has been very busy and then there's the Bears game and talking to everyone about the baby. Super busy. ESDNM came into town on Monday afternoon and we went straight from the airport to a client. Tuesday was busy again with a client meeting downtown at 9 a.m. and then a dinner meeting that went until 8.  Tomorrow morning I have to take ESDNM to the airport at 7:15 a.m. and I go to a different airport around 4-5ish to head down to Orlando for a 176 team softball tournament. My biggest concern: staying at a house with softball players. I may still end up in a hotel, but we'll see. I'll give the house a shot, but the last time I tried to stay at a house in Orlando, there were ants running up and down the bedpost and the towels were like paper towels. Not acceptable.

Look how early we were in the lot! 8 a.m. sharp for a noon game. We were back in the spots where we parked all of last year thanks to the Punke family! We have a much better time hanging out together before the game and then sitting together at the game. Good fun.

I could go on about the game, but it's bedtime and I haven't gotten to see much of LL the last few days.

One funny thing that's happening is that lots of people, upon finding out about the baby, are asking me if they can have my Bears tickets. I'M NOT DYING! I'm just having a baby! Lots of parents still go to Bears games and I plan on being one of them.

Well here's an update!

Here's a link: 9 weeks, 3 weeks ago.

Still busy

It seems like I'm constantly trying to keep up these days, which is fine I guess since it's mostly fun things that continue to keep me busy. Granted, work is also a bit busier than normal, but mostly it's fun stuff.

For instance, Monday, Labor Day, the Bears did a one hour radio show from their indoor training facility at Halas Hall which was for season ticket holders only and for only a limited number of people. Fortunately I was able to get two tickets and took Andy, aka Sausage, with me. We met for dinner beforehand at Tilted Kilt, a Hooters knock off, and then headed over for the festivities. This was the first time I'd been inside this particular facility (our meetings are usually at the main building) and it's pretty cool.

Interesting that they chose to do all the supports in wood. Had I known it was going to be in this particular portion of the complex, I would have brought a football to toss around!

Here's the stage with coach Lovie Smith, the GM Phil Emery, President Ted Phillips and the Bears announcer Jeff Joniak. During commercial breaks they fielded questions and did raffles. Good times.

Also on Monday, during the day, LL and I headed up north to an outdoor mall to do some clothes shopping for her. I thought it was the least I could do since she made the trip to Rockford for one stinking game (yes, still stings) and I enjoy our little trips together. We found a pancake house online that's not too far from the mall called Walker's Brothers Pancake House and decided to try it for breakfast. LL got some flat crazy European pancakes which she said I would not like (I had to agree) while I got this ginourmous apple and cinnamon "pancake" that was as big as the plate and probably an inch and a half thick. It was insane. I ate less than half of it and brought the rest home. Good eating!

Last night we had a hankering for some middle eastern food so we headed down Broadway a few blocks to Zad's. We really like their hummus and tried some new dishes and realized we like pretty much all of their food!

My stardom has begun!

Here's the link to a video where I won $130. It aired last night on Chicago Sports Net. Yes, I had been drinking, in fact, I still was as you can see the beer in my hand!

Short weekend

Well, my long softball weekend was cut dramatically short. We were playing in a 33 team regional tournament, though it was called a "national" tournament.  We played teams from Iowa and Minnesota and beat them both, but then lost to a team from the area whom we've beaten several times (they ended up taking 2nd place) and then to a different team from Minnesota by a score of 8-7 (Terri will be happy to know that I talked to the other team's third base coach about their state fair). So we went 2-2, a huge disappointment for us going into our Orlando tournament in two weeks. A small consolation was that I hit almost .700 and 4-5 in our two losses. Our first loss had a lot to do with a 6 hour (partial) rain delay between games due to the remnants of hurricane Isaac. We just came out flat after that break. Then we just didn't hit again on Sunday in our only game and trailed 8-5 going into the last at bat. We scored two and had a guy on when one of our better hitters absolutely ripped a ball that the third base managed to snag to end the game. Tough loss.

It was particularly bad because LL made the 90 minute trip out to Rockford for the game and was hoping to see more than just one.

On our wall in the kitchen is the calendar LL's mother made for us of wedding pictures. Here's the September grouping. It's one of my favorites!! Joisey Ken and his wife Dawn are in the first picture with good friends of LL. The two smaller pictures are clients of mine who are also good friends. Naperville Greg and Kleveland Kim are in the bottom left with Ricardo and wife Jodi in the lower right. Excellent! It lifted my spirits as soon as I walked by.

Here's the view I had at the Cubs game on Wednesday. They are my client's seats, the second client in the smaller picture up above, and  he offered them up last minute. Front row upper deck not far from the camera. Great seats, but we lost 3-1.

I'm just a terrible person I think.

I can't believe I haven't blogged since Monday. I'm such a slacker. Monday was our one year anniversary, then Tuesday was my fantasy football draft and then Wednesday a client gave me great tickets to the Cubs game. And that's the fun stuff not the work stuff!! The work stuff has been very busy too, so there hasn't been much time to even READ blogs. Softball this weekend in Rockford! A 33 team tournament. Should be a blast. Happy Labor Day weekend everyone!!

Joisey Ken Visit

So many things to write about from this trip...there's no way I can fit it all in. Here are some pictures and a video (!) though just so I have SOME of the memories recorded.

This particular picture has special meaning, not only because LL is in it with me, but because it's the bagel sandwich place that Ken and I discovered on the way to his lake house back in '07 or '08. It's still there and has moved across the  parking lot to a bigger location. When we pulled up (it's only sort of on the way as we have to take a slight detour off the highway and then make our way back to the highway) there was a for sale sign in front of the building! Fortunately I missed that sign and saw this one, otherwise I may have had a slight heart attack. Their bagels are delicious and I get them with egg, cheese and Taylor ham. Just wonderful

Pretty much all we did all weekend was eat and drink around some golf and some boating. This meal was prepared by Dawn, Ken's fantastic wife,  and was chicken fajitas with corn salad. Very tasty. Don't mind the beer cosy on my beer...my choices were Yankees or Vikings.

Over the weekend I also cooked ribs and we had crepes for breakfast twice which I also served up. I was just trying to earn my keep!!

Look at how close this family of deer gets! They know the Joisey Ken family, with 3 1/2 year old Stella, means bread for munching. The doe leads the way and comes within a few feet of the stairs while the fawns lay back a little. Nature up close!

 Look at where the doe is! That's insane! Stella was very happy to "toss" bread to her. Stella doesn't have the greatest arm though and much of the bread only went a foot or two. Ken plays catch with her and says "Don't throw like momma!" which I find hysterical.

Dawn, LL and Stella out in the water of Lake Wallenpaupack. It was a pretty nice day for being out in the lake and doing some tubing.

On the way down to the lake the first morning, LL and I were stopped in our tracks by this sight! We had to walk right past where he was standing. Not gonna happen. There was a second buck to the left in the picture, but because of the sun position, I couldn't tell if he was in frame or not. Guess not!

Ahhhh, the great fire from the last night there on Saturday. Sigh......

Ok, this picture is fuzzy, but bear with me. We were making s'mores, but without the graham cracker. What you do is get the jumbo marshmallows, not the ones that say "jumbo" but the ones that are REALLY jumbo like 2-3 of the normal jumbo. Toast as normal but then slide off the exterior shell in one piece! Then you can add some chocolate pieces into the marshmallow shell and boy is it tasty. You can re-toast the marshmallow again, but the same trick is hard to replicate....at least without getting pretty messy!

And no trip to the lake house would be complete without fireworks. Turns out you can BUY fireworks in PA, but you have to sign something saying you are going to ANOTHER state to light them off. No shit, I'm not making this stuff up. How could I?  I'm not creative enough to make up something that stupid. It works in our favor though!  Thanks for a great, long weekend Ken and Dawn (and Stella!).

I"m back!

Pictures to follow later today!

Off to see Joisey Ken

 So all you get is pictures today.

Here's the Bears flag that Ken bought me. It looks awesome!!

My finger all bandaged up. It doesn't look too bad now, but I still have a band-aid on it just to make sure it doesn't catch on anything and tear.

From the last STHAG meeting (Season Ticket Holder Advisory Group). Part of the meeting was a tour of the facilities at Soldier Field (normally we meet at Halas Hall). This is the locker room of course.

The schedule down to the minute for the Denver game.

Fairly non-descript signage.

New this year: a solid metal Bears logo on the wall next to the exit to the field. The players all touch it on their way out. Very college-like.  It was actually DONATED by a metal fabricator. The Bears wouldn't let them put their name up though. A little odd......

Lovie's office.......

....is about as plain as it gets. Normally, he's not here very long. They spend all their time at Halas Hall.

Chris the video guy. I told him if he made me look bad on video, I'd skewer him on the web. Haven't seen anything yet though.

Charity golf outing at the country club in my home town. Never got to play there as a kid.

Menacing clouds behind the old clock. We got a little rain, but you wouldn't believe how green the course was despite our drought this year. Lush.

Bears pregame with all the tailgaters. Good fun!  Benny Baseball made his first appearance of the year (next to Carm wearing #23). Blind Mender is on the left with Pam next to him. It was her first football game.

The ladies, LL and Pam, wanted crepes when we got home (around midnight) so chef Sutton obliged and made them some. Good eating anytime!!

Signing the waiver so I could be on TV. Won $130 bones!!! Nice.

How did I forget?

Moments before our guests were to arrive on Friday for game night, I was cleaning out some things from the refrigerator to make room for the new food and drinks we bought for the evening. In doing so, I pulled out a bottle of wine with about a half a glass left in it which I saved from the prior week. We have an air suction thingy that keeps the wine pretty fresh for a day or two, but not over a week by any means. So I took out the air plug and then started to take off the wine collar which I left on for the first time in memory.  But it was stuck. Now, wine collars don't really get stuck per se. Sometimes they are hard to get off, but not stuck. This one was actually STUCK though. It just wouldn't budge. Until it did...which I wasn't prepared for I guess and somehow the fingernail on my middle finger got rammed into something solid or sharp or whatever and ripped a nice big "J" shape down and through my email to the side. Ugh!! Did you just wince a little?  Yeah, everyone has done something like this. I bandaged it up, with LL's help, and went on with the evening. The next day we took off the bandage and examined it. It looked like the nail could be partially saved, preventing the exposure of the soft, soft tissue underneath the nail. So we bandaged it again and waited for Sunday to look further at it as we had to get ready for the Bears game (tailgating started at 3 for the 7:00 game). Sunday morning it looked like we could really save the nail, so LL went out and got some Superglue and I spread it on the break a couple of times to try and keep it on there for a while. We'll see what happens.

But it wasn't all pain and suffering this weekend. We had a friend of LL's staying with us, Pam, which is an inside joke because her name is Anupam and she goes by Anu and hates being called Pam. Well Pam is living in Carbondale currently (very far away) and has never been to a Bears game. Fortunately the guys who sit next to me, The Punkes, weren't going to be at the game and they offered me a few of their tickets which I gladly accepted. So Pam got to experience tailgating and a game! Good fun.

About halfway through the tailgate, a small group of people with microphones and a camera came by the tailgate and asked if I wanted a chance to win some money. Sure!! After finding a relatively quiet area in which to film the segment, the game was on. Turns out they are part of a new local show on one of our sports channels called "GasMoney" in which they ask you 3 questions and you get $10, then another $20 and finally play for another $100 ($130 in total) if you answer them right. Guess who got them all right? Yep! Though I did have some help from the people around (turns out you will draw a relatively large crowd if you start giving away money on television). All three questions were Bears questions and I knew the first two pretty quickly. For the third question he asked me to name one of the pro-bowl offensive linemen from the 1985 Bears, which I did quickly so he asked me to name two, which is where I got help from the crowd.  Hopefully the video will be posted soon and I'll post a link!

Still so busy

The crazy fun week has been pretty great. To recap: Cubs game, Bears advisory group meeting, pizza night, game night and the Bears game. Tomorrow is a charity golf outing in Naperville and then Wednesday we head to see Joisey Ken, so the busy-ness continues!!

While I've been so busy I've lost focus on some of the details of day-to-day living. For instance, last week in the midst of all the traveling and such, LL was going to work and our front door knob came off in her hands! How crazy is that?  Solving that problem, which is what husbands do, involved going to Home Depot, buying a new (and better) handle and deadbolt and getting someone to install it (because even if I DID have time, I wouldn't have done a good job)...enter MLM.

Then at Bill the Bear's wedding, which I missed the ceremony by the way due to traffic, I became VERY drunk and was telling Bill's ex-boss how "memorable the day would be for Bill" if she just walked up to him and kicked him in the nuts. Yeah, I said it....several times. At the time, it was freaking hysterical (if you were drunk). If you weren't, then not so much. Despite that portion of the evening it was a fun time!

We had game night on Friday in which we had two friends from my Morningstar days and two of LL's friends come over and drink, eat appetizers and pizza and play games. The games of choice were Celebrity Taboo (from like 1993 or something so think of answers like Karl Malden and Raquel Welch) and Catchphrase which was actually very fun. You basically have to get your partner(s) to say the catchphrase before the buzzer goes off. It's good fun, but some of the catchphrases (like "Drop the Chalupa") were questionable as real phrases.

Many pictures to post.....maybe I'll have them by Tuesday!

Busyness update

No, I'm not whining or complaining about all the fun things going on this week and next, but it is hectic! Last night was the Cubs game and LL and I went out to enjoy the crowd and the Cracker Jack.  Actually, we didn't buy any Cracker Jack, but we do love it! Naw, we ate at a bar that had recently changed ownership and was renamed.  Another bar, Johnny O'Hagans, was closed for renovations as it was purchased by a bar consortium.  I'm wondering if the turnover in bars has anything to do with the declining attendance at Wrigley Field due to the terrible product being put on the field?  LL and I invoked our own "slaughter rule" and left in the 7th inning when the Astros went up 10-0.  Double digit lead means we go home. It was sort of funny as the Astros player hit a home run to make it 10-0 and LL and I jumped up and said to our neighbors "We're out of here!".
"Just like that?" they said.
"Yep. They reached the slaughter rule. No reason to stay."
They just laughed. Living so close to the field makes it much easier to come and go and feel like it's not a crazy special night so we have to stay. Plus we have tickets to 8 games this year, which is a fair amount of bad baseball.

Tonight LL gets a bit of break, but I'm off to the Season Ticket Holder Advisory Group meeting for the Bears down at Soldier Field instead of Halas Hall. Should be an interesting evening. Here's the discussion topics for tonight:

Coming to the Game Communication

Parking – Ingress and Egress

Tailgating

Stadium Ingress (new security procedures)

In-Game Stadium Experience

Staff Performance

UnBEARable Behavior

Concessions

Restrooms

Gameday Entertainment

Interesting stuff. We'll see how it goes.

In addition to everything else, we've invited a friend of LL's up from Carbondale, IL to spend Friday and Saturday and go to the game with us on Saturday night (she's never been). Plus we're getting a ticket for Benny Baseball's ex-girlfriend, who went with me to the first pre-season game. Benny has my other tickets for that game and that could prove to be a bit awkward, but I'm hoping everyone is an adult and has fun.  Hopefully that's not too much to ask!! The breakup was tough, but it was several years ago and she, Female Courtney (we call her that because we have a guy friend who we call Courtney), was dating a softball acquaintance of both Benny and me for at least 2 years before recently breaking up, so it should be fine. Sounds sort of like a soap opera!!

Busyness coming to an end?

Sunday afternoon has finally arrived and while I still have cleaning up to do from the tailgate and all over the last few days, the crazy schedule has calmed down a bit....or has it?

First, I got to Rockford Saturday morning and we played and won our first game on schedule. Our next game wasn't for 2 hours, so I took a lunch break at McDonald's, which becomes a common lunch for me during tournaments because they are almost always within 5 minutes of the fields. It's not great, but the yogurt and granola is pretty good along with iced coffee.  Add in a power bar of some sort and it's not a bad lunch. Anyway, I headed back to the fields around 12:15 or so for our 1:00 game as sometimes the games can start 30 minutes early if there is a game stopped due to the run rule (one team is up by too many runs).  The game before ours though was just getting started! Then the  game went into extra innings and not just one, but 5! Finally around 1:45, the other field opened up and they started our game over there. It was against a team we play pretty often called Fury. They won their first game 23-0 and it was stopped after 3 innings. The team they beat were then getting 15-2 in their next game (the one before ours) before they kicked it into gear and the last I saw, it was 22-22 in the 12th.

Anyway, we ended up beating Fury 20-9, but it was 3:30 by the time the game ended. Bill the Bear's wedding was at 5, and it was close to 2 hours away according to Google Maps. Along the way, there were two accidents which caused me to be even later. However, had I stopped to think about it, I probably could have played one more game, missed the happy hour and then arrived in time for dinner. But if there weren't accidents, I could have actually made the ceremony as the trip wasn't 2 hours. Oh well. The reception was great and we had a great time. The softball team ended up losing the game after I left, won the next one and then lost again in the finals to take 2nd. The one team beat us both times.

My crazy schedule does not end though. Tuesday I have a Cubs game, Wednesday is another Bears season ticket holder meeting, Thursday is our monthly pizza night, Friday is game night with some friends and Saturday is the next Bears preseason game. Wow. Next Monday is a charity golf outing and then on Wednesday we head to Jersey to hook up with Joisey Ken for four days. Crazy busy August!!

Alive and Kicking

I am alive and feeling better. Unfortunately, I'm really just going from one thing to the next throughout the day and haven't had time to write. After I finish this short update, I'm off to golf with Bill the Bear then I come home and pack for the weekend. Tomorrow is softball at 9 in Rockford (probably 2 games before I have to leave) then the wedding ceremony and reception. Sunday is finally a break as the tournament is only one day, which I'm unhappy about because I have to miss the last 3-4 games. Crap.

Despite the rain last night, we had fun tailgating. LL didn't go so I brought my friend, female Courtney, who was a hit with the guys. Blind Mender showed up as well and his friend Liz 2 (apparently there was more than one Liz in his life at one point so he dubbed her Liz 2). We weren't able to park next to the guys we normally park next to and my buddy Doug is going to find out why before the season starts. He knows the parking lot attendant who ushered my car to a different area of the lot, even though he normally lets me go join Doug for a combined tailgate. This puts a damper on the tailgating experience: more people is always more fun.